I haven't posted in a very long time. I've been trialing with Kimi and Maggie; collecting MACHs and PACHs along the way. Working on Kimi's AGCH; just 3 STD Qs away.
In August, a massage therapist found a lump under Kimi's armpit. Shane -- who is 12 - is covered in lumps, so I didn't really think much about it. I was more concerned about getting some weight off Kimi, so I switched to a low-fat, low-quality food. The kibble happened to be a bit bigger than is regular food, and probably tasted like cardboard, so it seemed natural that Kimi would have difficulty eating it. I switched back to his old kibble and he picked at that as well. Gave him some canned food and that seemed to be OK, so I got curious about his teeth. Off to the vet we go and got she found a cracked molar.
Dropped Kimi off for his dental and the vet called around noon to tell me that Kimi's Calcium was elevated and they couldn't do the dental. Explained to me that it might be a parathyroid cancer and sent his specimen off to the University of Michigan. A week later, the results came back with parathyroid-related protein, which suggests cancer somewhere. We schedule an ultrasound for the next week.
After an agility weekend, Kimi stops eating and started vomiting on a Tuesday so I rush to the ER, where they do the ultrasound and find nothing. Suggested I meet with their internist. She meets with me to discuss lymphoma. By this time, I had read everything I could find on the Internet about elevated calcium and lymphoma, so I was already there with the diagnosis. She aspirated his lymph nodes, gave me some prednisone, and I made an appointment with the oncologist.
The prednisone was magic. Kimi became ravenous and ate everything I gave him. Thanks to a Facebook group, I began giving him Dr. Harvey's Paradigm food with cooked turkey. I added Hemp oil. Apparently, starches feed cancer cells, so Kimi is on a Keto diet.
Finally, something will happen after a month of waiting. Still has the cracked tooth and we start chemo. The first week was several pills, cyclophosphamide. Kimi handles it well. Second week was a low dose of Vincristine, which he handled well too. Third week was a full dose of Vincristine. All great so far. Kimi's appetite is healthy and his tooth doesn't seem to bother him with the Gabapentin he's getting. Do wish they could pull it, but vet wants to wait until chemo is over.
Next week is the first dose of Doxorubicon, which is a heavy chemo drug. Not looking forward to it as I read about the terrible side effects. I have been hoping to get his AGCH title by the end of the year, so this is such a punch in the gut. My thoughts were to get this title and then just cruise through MACHs for the next couple of years until Kimi was ready to retire - 5 years from now. Now I'm looking at months, if I'm lucky. Didn't think I would be ending agility this soon.
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